Rachel Smalter-Hall

In 2005, Rachel graduated from Macalester College in St.
Paul, MN in English Literature. She has also taken classes
in Italian and Greek. She had the good fortune of being able to study abroad in Rome for the
Winter Semester, 2004. Click here to see those
photographs: Rachel's semester abroad in Italy.

She then spent several years living in Burlington, Vermont,
first working as a section manager at the Burlington Barnes & Noble bookstore
and then working in a local hospital. She has done some copy writing for a marketing company and has
done some book critiquing and some book editing for her dad's publishing
company.

From 2008 to 2010, Rachel attended the University of Iowa,
graduating in May 2010 with a master's degree in Library and Information
Science. She accepted a job in Lawrence, Kansas, at a public library.

She then became engaged to Aaron Smalter, and they were married on
September 18, 2010 in Lawrence. Here is a link to their
wedding website, though you won't be able to access it without a registered username and password. Rachel has
known Aaron since high school, but didn't begin dating him until she came back
to the Midwest from Vermont.

Aaron has a PhD in computer science from the University of Kansas and currently has a research position at the University. Rachel worked as a librarian in Lawrence and then Johnson County, Kansas for several years. In October, 2014 they became the parents of a baby boy, and Rachel now works from home for the book review website, Book Riot.

“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”—Edmund Burke